Patient Wears VR During Brain Surgery

In a world first, a patient in France undergoing brain surgery while conscious wore virtual reality glasses as doctors removed a cancerous tumor, the chief surgeon told AFP Tuesday.

"In creating a completely artificial world for the patient, we could map certain zones and connections of his brain related to functions that we could not, up to now, easily test on the operating table," Philippe Menei, a neurosurgeon at Angers hospital in western France, told AFP.

The operation was performed on January 27, and the patient was recovering well, he said.

Taking a scalpel to the brain while a patient is conscious has been a common practice for more than a decade. Doing so allows doctors to determine, during an operation, whether and how vital functions such as speech, vision and movement are affected.

Patients cannot feel the probing of their brain tissue, and do not experience pain. But using three-dimensional, virtual reality opens up a whole new range of possibilities, Menei said.

"By totally controlling what the patient sees and hears, we can put him in situations that allow us to do tests on certain (neural) connections that were not possible before," he said.

In this case, it was crucial to protect the patient's vision because he had already lost sight in one eye due to an illness. During the operation, the medical team created a neutral virtual environment with no single point of focus.

"In this empty void, we could control the space and make luminous objects appear in the patient's peripheral vision," Menei said.

Three weeks after the operation, the patient's vision was intact despite the removal of an aggressive tumor in a region controlling sight. Menei said the patient was now preparing to undergo chemotherapy.

Virtual reality glasses "open the way to greater precision, and allow us to envision procedures that were not possible up to now, such as the removal of otherwise inaccessible brain tumors," he said.

His team plans to use the technique again in the coming months on patients with brain tumors situated near areas that control vision.

Virtual reality glasses could also be adapted for children, and may be tested on young patients before the end of the year. Brain cancer is the second most common form of cancer among children in France.

This past week in Las Vegas, thousands of people attended the Consumer Electronics Show, where exhibitors showed off the latest in electronic devices. Among the technologies trending were virtual reality gadgets. From goggles to full-body suits to omni-directional treadmills, here's a look at the latest advances in virtual reality.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung showed off its Gear VR, an Oculus headset that accommodates a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. The company also demonstrated Rink, a pair of handheld, gesture-based controllers meant to be used with the Samsung Gear VR.

Google Cardboard's inexpensive virtual reality goggles inspired others to produce cheaper versions that are compatible with the company's apps. Speck announced its Pocket VR and I Am Cardboard announced its DSCVR Headset -- both designed to display content created for Google's Cardboard VR.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, HTC released its Vive Pre, a headset meant mainly for developers. It has a front-facing camera that gives wearers a view into the real world. The consumer version of the Vive is expected to begin shipping in April.

Along with the goggles and headsets that make virtual reality possible, electronic companies are also coming out with gadgets the expand the sensory limits beyond vision. For example, the Tesla Suit from Tesla Studios is a full-body suit that contains small sensors that send out tiny electrical pulses to stimulate different parts of the body, depending on the action happening in the virtual world. You can help fund the Kickstarter campaign

Virtuix announced its omni-directional treadmill at last year's Consumer Electronics Show, but this year they used it to host the first-ever eSports tournament in VR. There were four HTC Vive headsets connected to four treadmills. Participants could sign up to join a competitive multiplayer shooter game called Omni Arena.